


It Might Be Wrong (OR: 5 Times Angel Hated Her Dad's Boyfriend + 1 Time He Was Maybe Sorta Okay)

by michaelandthegodsquad



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: 5+1 Things, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5346986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaelandthegodsquad/pseuds/michaelandthegodsquad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“...your house?” Rhys asks quietly.</p><p>“Yeah? As in the house I grew up in? My room is upstairs?” At Rhys’s blank stare, she sighs, gesturing down the hall. “I live here? With my dad? </p><p>“Your da—” Rhys stops abruptly, his eyes widening. “Your dad. Oh my god,” he says, burying his face in his hand. “Jack is your dad, isn’t he?” he continues, voice muffled.</p><p>Angel squints at him. “Yeah? How do you know…” She trails off, connecting the dots.. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Are you—oh my god,” she shrieks, and Rhys groans into his hand. </p><p>OR: A college AU in which Rhys and Angel are friends/academic rivals, Rhys is dating Angel's dad, and it's all just very weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Might Be Wrong (OR: 5 Times Angel Hated Her Dad's Boyfriend + 1 Time He Was Maybe Sorta Okay)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amekie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amekie/gifts).



> For [rhackme](http://rhackme.tumblr.com/), who asked for fic of their College AU, which I have been lovingly calling the Stacy's Mom verse for months. As usual I was asked for something simple and got carried away. This was an absolutely joy to work on and I would love to write more for this verse in the future!
> 
> If you can't tell, these are just snippets from what I imagine to be a much larger verse. So if parts of this seemed rushed, it's probably because I was trying to condense all the stuff I imagined happening in between these 5+1 moments.
> 
> Title from Fountains of Wayn's "Stacy's Mom," because why _wouldn't_ it be?

It’s Rhys’s fault that Angel was late that day in the first place. After falling asleep on the couch during their study session in her apartment the night before, she’d woken up to find that he’d just _left,_ the asshole, not even waking her up so she could actually go to bed and set her alarm for the next day.

She’d been rushing out of her apartment, hair still wet and backpack slung over one shoulder, when she called her father.

“You’re late,” he’d answered, and she swore under her breath.

“Yeah, I woke up late,” she’d said, hurrying down the steps and out of the building. “Can you meet me at the café next to the library instead? I didn’t have time for breakfast.”

“Sure, whatever,” he’d grumbled, and Angel smiled.

“Great! And can you pay for it too? Thanks, Dad, you’re the best!” she said, hanging up before he had a chance to protest.

Had she met Jack at the library on time, she would’ve seen the way he was leaning against the circulation desk, talking in low tones to the work-study page, the two of them leaning a bit too close to each other as they spoke.

“I gotta head out,” Jack said after he hung up, pocketing his phone and smirking as he tapped his fingers dangerously close to the page’s on the desk. “But I’m sure I’ll see you around, Rhysie,” he continued with grin and a wink, before leaving the library to meet her.

* * *

 

**1.**

It’s early when Angel stumbles, bleary-eyed, out of her childhood bedroom, padding downstairs to the kitchen for coffee. Her father isn’t awake yet, surprisingly, and she glances at his door in concern; he wasn’t up when she arrived late last night, and it’s not like him to sleep this much.

Shrugging, she drags her feet into the kitchen, hoping that with enough coffee she’ll be able to convince Jack to drive her to Hyperion so she can use their labs to work on her thesis again. She’s just stirred milk and sugar into her own cup and is walking to the living room to look over her plans again when she bumps into—Rhys?

“What the fuck,” she says, quietly at first, then, louder, “ _What the fuck._ ”

Rhys blinks a few times, squinting at her. “Angel? What are you doing here?”

“What am _I_ doing here? What are _you_ doing here? On a Sunday morning? Wearing—” she pauses, looking incredulously down at his clothes, a light blue robe paired with fuzzy striped socks. “Is that my robe? Are you wearing _my robe?_ ” She puts her coffee down, her voice rising in volume. “Please tell me you have clothes on under that.”

Rhys doesn’t answer, his hand clutching the belt of the robe. “...I don’t know how to answer that.”

“ _Oh my god,”_ Angel groans, looking away. “Rhys, what _the fuck?_ Why are you here?”

“I was...invited,” Rhys mumbles, scratching at the back of his neck. “Why are _you_ here?”

“...because this is _my_ house?”

Rhys pauses. “...your house?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah? As in the house I grew up in? My room is upstairs?” At Rhys’s blank stare, she sighs, gesturing down the hall. “I live here? With my dad?

“Your da—” Rhys stops abruptly, his eyes widening. “Your _dad_. Oh my god,” he says, burying his face in his hand. “Jack is your dad, isn’t he?” he continues, voice muffled.

Angel squints at him. “Yeah? How do you know…” She trails off, connecting the dots.. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Are you— _oh my god,”_ she shrieks, and Rhys groans into his hand. “Rhys that is so _gross,_ I can’t believe—I knew you liked old guys but this—oh my god, Rhys, he’s my _dad_. Rhys, you’re _screwing my dad,_ I can’t _believe_ this, that’s _disgusting._ ”

“Shut up, oh my god, shut up shut up _shut up,_ ” Rhys says, face red as he pushes past her into the kitchen.

-

By the time Jack finally does venture out of his room—in only his underwear, at that—Rhys and Angel are sitting silently at the kitchen island, first pot of coffee gone and another one brewed, resolutely not looking at each other.

“Morning, pumpkin,” he says, pouring himself a cup. Both Angel and Rhys turn to him to reply, and Jack grins. “Well. Pumpkins.” He’s halfway through his coffee before he even notices the way they both glare at him. “What? S’there something on my face?”

Angel huffs, gesturing to Rhys. “Seriously? _Him?_ ” she asks, ignoring Rhys’s indignant “Hey!”

Jack shrugs, adjusting his glasses on his face as he brings his mug to his lips. “What can I say? I like ‘em leggy.” Rhys’s face turns bright red as Angel groans, dropping her face onto the counter and banging her forehead against the surface repeatedly.

* * *

 

 **2.**  

For the record, Angel is not opposed to her dad dating, or...whatever it is he’s doing with Rhys.

“It’s just _weird,_ okay?” she tells him in the car. “He’s my friend, sort of. We have classes together. We hang out sometimes. How am I supposed to look him in the eye now that you two are…” She frowns, fiddling with her seatbelt. “Y’know.”

Jack shrugs, changing lanes, keeping a straight face as he says, “Who says you have to look him in the eye? I usually don’t.”

“Dad, _please._ ” Angel huffs in response to Jack’s cackling, remaining quiet until he shifts the car into park in Hyperion’s underground garage. She immediately gets out and slams the door behind her before stomping over to the elevator, waiting with crossed arms for Jack to call it with his keycard.

“Does it really bother you that much?” Jack asks as they wait for the elevator.

Angel doesn’t look at him. “Are you gonna stop if I say it does?”

“Probably not.”

Angel grunts as the doors open, throwing her arms up as she stomps in and presses the buttons for their floors. “How is this not weird for you? He’s younger than _me._ ”

“Wait, seriously?” Jack says with a chuckle. “By how much?”

“A couple _years._ He’s twenty-one, Dad, did you even bother _asking?”_

Jack shrugs and leans back against the wall, crossing his arms. “But holy shit, that's hilarious,” he says, his grin shifting his scar up. “Still got it,” he says quietly to himself, and when Angel looks over, his face is smug.

“So it really doesn’t bother you that he’s not even half your age?” she asks him, and for a moment Jack hums, tapping a finger against his chin in consideration before grinning widely.

“Nope! Not one bit,” he says before the doors open onto the labs, and Angel groans as she steps out, Jack’s cackling fading as the elevator closes.

-

When they finally get their exams back, Angel leans up to look over Rhys’s shoulder at his rubric.

“How’d you do?” she asks as they file out of the room..

Rhys doesn’t look at her, brows furrowed as he examines his rubric. “9.4,” he mumbles, frowning as he shoves the paper into his backpack and sighs. “You?”

Angel grins, holding up her rubric for him to see. “Perfect score,” she sing-songs, laughing at the way Rhys scowls. “Guess that means you’re buying lunch today. Hmm...I’m feeling quesadillas. What do you think, 9.4?” she asks gleefully as they step out onto the quad.

Rhys shoots her a seething look as he adjusts his backpack. “ _Whatever,_ Angel, I’m still banging your dad,” he huffs, setting into a brisk walk and leaving her standing in the quad, face reddening and perfect score crumpling in her fist.

* * *

 

 **3.**  

The rest of the semester passes in a blur of thesis work and grad school applications, some frankly alarming GRE practice exams followed by the real thing, and library employees making rounds with tissues for crying students. (Angel really wishes that last part was a joke, but when she’s seven pages into an eighteen-page paper at 4AM during finals week and finds herself wiping moisture away from her reddened eyes, she’s thankful for the friendly face offering her a box of kleenex.)

One night Angel finds herself blessedly alone in one of the cubicles on the library’s quiet floor, which is fine except for the way the lack of noise lulls her to sleep. Less than an hour later she feels the tap of a cold finger against her temple and wakes with a start; when she looks around in a panic there’s a hot coffee in front of her. She eyes the cup suspiciously, popping the top open and inhaling deeply; it’s her favorite: a mocha, with two shots of espresso. Angel peeks up above the edge of her cubicle and sees Rhys’s retreating back as he wheels a cart full of books down an aisle across the floor. She smiles and takes a generous sip of her coffee, waking up her laptop and getting back to work.

It’s 2AM when she finally leaves, ready to collapse in her bed and get an astonishing four hours of sleep, until she sees Rhys at the circulation desk. His laptop is open in front of him, one robotic finger still on the track pad, head propped up on his flesh hand, drool trailing down his wrist as he sleeps. Angel sighs tiredly, dragging herself to the copy machines.

Within a few minutes, Rhys wakes up to a notification on his phone, which has been left next to a refill of his own coffee on top of a short stack of papers. _Wake up asshole,_ Angel’s text reads, and Rhys moves the coffee aside to find a copy of a completed study guide for tomorrow’s exam. Rhys smiles softly and sends a kiss emoji, to which Angel replies with what looks like a hissing cat emoticon, and he puts his phone aside to begin reading through the guide.

-

“Can Rhys ski?” Jack asks her over breakfast that weekend, when she finally emerges from her room after catching up on sleep for nearly an entire day.

Angel shrugs, pouring cereal into a bowl.. “I don’t know, I never asked him. Why?” she mumbles, reaching for the milk and pausing to look at Jack. “...is he coming with us?”

Jack shrugs, hiding behind his tablet. “I’m thinking about asking if he wants to come.” Angel knows that’s the closest he’ll ever get to asking if she’s okay with Rhys joining them on their trip, and she shrugs and pours milk into her cereal..

“As long as I get my own room.” She sits across from him at the island, bringing a spoonful of cereal to her mouth. “Are _you_ okay with that?”

Jack peeks over his glasses at her, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I’m just saying,” Angel replies, eyebrow raised as she chews. “We go every year and I’ve never seen you invite anyone you were dating. Even Nisha didn’t come along until after you guys broke up.” She smirks at him and watches him huff, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.

“Whatever. M’just trying to be nice. You don’t need to read into it so much.” Angel shrugs, and they sit in silence until Rhys walks in, rubbing at his eyes and wearing _his own_ robe this time—one that Angel knows he keeps in Jack’s bathroom.

“Morning,” he grumbles, waving to Angel before he sidles up to Jack, planting a sleepy kiss in his hair before he walks over to the coffee machine. Angel sees Jack’s eyes soften as he watches Rhys go, and she snickers under her breath.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sure I’m just reading into it,” she says, and Jack scowls before picking up his tablet again.

-

As it turns out, Rhys can’t ski. He doesn’t tell anyone that, though, so they get to the trail marked by a blue square on the map and Rhys...immediately loses his balance and falls on his ass, sliding downhill through the snow until he finally listens to Jack’s yelling and uses his poles to skid to a stop.

“What the fuck are you doing, Rhys?” Jack asks him when they reach him, Jack on his skis and Angel on her snowboard, which not-so-accidentally throws snow into Rhys’s face when she comes to a stop. Jack glares at her, helping Rhys stand, and Angel shrugs before offering Rhys her arm as well.

“I don’t _know_!” Rhys whines, still holding on to Jack to keep his balance once he’s on his feet again.

“I think you might have to take him to the bunny slope,” Angel says, biting her lip to keep from laughing at Jack’s horrified look..

Jack sighs, scrubbing a gloved hand down his face. “C’mon, cupcake, let’s go,” he grumbles, pulling Rhys along where he clings to his arm.

“I’ll meet you at the bottom,” Angel shouts as she whizzes past on her snowboard, Jack swearing behind her.

-

“What’s taking him so long?” Rhys asks, slumping in his seat in the hotel lobby.

“He’s probably putting on like thirty sweaters. In case you haven’t noticed, he doesn’t do so well in the cold,” Angel says, distracted by her phone as she watches the video of Rhys wiping out and laughs again.

Rhys glares at her. “Can you not? You’ve watched that like a hundred times already, it’s _not_ that funny.”

“Oh, but it _is,_ ” Angel says, giggling. “In fact...I think I’m gonna post it to the department Facebook. You don’t mind, do you?” she asks sweetly, grinning at Rhys, who lunges for her phone.

“Don’t be a dick, Angel,” he grunts, climbing out of his chair to get to her, Angel laughing and holding her phone out of reach..

Most of the people hanging around the lobby either pay them no mind or glare quietly, but one elderly couple stops a few feet away, smiling at them. “Remember when ours used to bicker like that?” one of the women says, holding on to her wife’s arm, who replies with some comment about sibling rivalry.

At that, Rhys pauses, looking at Angel with a smile that she absolutely _does not_ trust, before looking at the couple.

“Actually,” he says, his grin shark-like, “we’re not siblings. I’m her future step-dad.” Angel’s eyes widen, as do the couple’s, and after they nod with a surprised “ _Oh_ ” and shuffle away, Angel turns a murderous glare on Rhys.

“I’m gonna kill you in your sleep,” she whispers, and Rhys laughs, smirking.

“Good luck getting past your dad first,” he says, standing to greet Jack as he finally joins them.

-

That night, as Angel is falling asleep, she hears a faint shuffling through the hotel wall, followed by a steady knocking and a muffled moan in what is unmistakably Rhys’s voice. She covers her ears and screams into the pillow before turning the TV on full volume to drown them out before eventually falling asleep.

She shoots death stares at them the whole next day, but realizes, as she watches them sit awfully close together on the couch, drinking hot cocoa with the light from the fireplace flickering softly on their faces—neither of them seem to notice.

* * *

 

 **4.**  

Angel’s last semester of undergrad is surprisingly not as difficult as she thought it would be. She and Rhys finally take their hands-on classes; she chooses a grad school while Rhys decides to take a gap year to intern at Hyperion (surprising no one); and she continues to work on her thesis. This semester, though, Rhys joins her and Jack on their weekend trips to Hyperion to take advantage of their labs as well.

Honestly, by this point Angel thought her father would’ve gotten bored with Rhys and moved on, or vice versa; but the next thing she knows, it’s April and Rhys is joining them for spring break.

On their first day in Cancun, Jack emerges from his room wearing red swim trunks and the _ugliest_ Hawaiian shirt Angel has ever seen, but by far the worst part, she realizes, is his decision to wear socks and sandals.

Before she even opens her mouth to tell him so, Rhys chimes in with, “That’s fucking _disgusting,_ ” but when she looks at him, he’s giving Jack a ridiculously soft, fond look, and she tries not to gag.

-

“I think I’m gonna go to that party we heard about earlier,” she tells them the next day, gathering her things to head back to the room and get ready.

Rhys’s eyes widen where he’s sitting at the edge of the pool, his legs swinging back and forth in the water. “The one on the beach? With the bonfire?” At Angel’s nod, Rhys looks at Jack, who’s tanning on a chair nearby. “You wanna go?” he asks hopefully, and Jack flips up his sunglasses to look at him. 

“Not a chance,” he says, and Rhys’s smile falls. Angel stands awkwardly between them, not sure whether she should wait for Rhys or not.

“Um. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later?” Rhys says quietly, and Angel nods, ruffling his hair on her way out.

-

She’s not _quite_ drunk when she returns to the hotel later that night, but the keycard takes her a few tries and she’s probably not as quiet as she thinks she’s being when she sneaks through the suite to get to her room, before she stops suddenly at the sound of shouting coming from Jack and Rhys’s room.

“I just don’t see what the big deal is about going to _one_ dumb party, it would’ve been fun!” Rhys says, his voice muffled through the door.

“If you wanted to go so bad you should’ve just _gone,_ fucking hell, Rhys.” Jack’s not quite yelling, but his tone is hard and makes the hairs on the back of Angel’s neck stand on end.

“Have you considered maybe I wanted to go with my boyfriend?”

Jack’s snort is loud before he says, “Okay, first? Quit calling me your boyfriend, it sounds juvenile. And for fuck’s sake, I'm not going to stupid spring break shit to hang out with a bunch of dumbass kids.”

A pause, and then: “...I _am_ one of those dumbass kids, Jack.”

Angel doesn’t hear a reply before she darts into her own room, but it’s quiet for the rest of the night.

* * *

 

 **5.**  

So maybe Angel was wrong. Sure, the last eight months of having to put up with Rhys dating her dad have been mostly hellish but she has to admit—it’s a thousand times worse now that they’ve broken up.

A week after they get back from Cancun, Jack picks her up to take her to Hyperion one more time to test her thesis before her defense later that week, and her nose wrinkles when she sees him.

“Are you wearing sweats?” she asks as she buckles her seatbelt, and Jack shrugs, shifting the car into drive and taking off. “When was the last time you showered?” she says a few minutes later, cracking her window. Jack shrugs again, and when she takes a closer look at him, she realizes he hasn’t even bothered putting his contacts in, and a few days’ worth of stubble lines his jaw.

“...Dad, are you okay?” she finally asks as he parks in Hyperion’s garage, and he shrugs again.

-

At her thesis defense, both Rhys and Jack show up to support her, but when they sit at opposite ends of the room and awkwardly avoid each other, Angel wishes they hadn’t come at all.

-

When Angel leans over to see Rhys’s results from their last lab practical, her eyes widen at the 6.5/10 scribbled at the top of his rubric, but Rhys doesn’t seem too bothered by it.

There’s a final exam review for Kinematics and Dynamics that evening. Angel looks for Rhys to sit next to him, but he isn’t there, and she groans internally at the realization that this is getting out of hand.

* * *

 

 **+1**  

Rhys arrives at the library the Saturday before finals week, dark circles under his eyes covered by sunglasses, and heads for the central seating area where Angel said she’d meet him.

Instead of finding Angel there, though, he finds Jack, who looks like he’s had better days...weeks...months, maybe. His stubble is threatening to become a full beard, growing messily around his scar, his glasses low on his nose where he looks at something on his phone. He’s wearing sweats with a dark stain on one leg and what Rhys used to affectionately call his old-man-sneakers. And yeah, he’s _definitely_ seen better days, but still—

“You look good,” Rhys says quietly, one hand stuffed into his pocket and the other clutching his backpack strap.

Jack looks up at him suddenly, and Rhys wants to say he sees a flicker of relief there, but he tries not to get his hopes up.

“What are you doing here,” Jack says gruffly, looking back down at his phone.

“I go to school here.”

“No shit. Just meant I thought you’d be out partying or doing whatever you kids do.” Jack replies sarcastically, clearly not actually doing anything on his phone at this point, just staring blankly at the screen and scrolling aimlessly for a distraction.

Rhys shrugs, wishing he had something to do with his hands, too. He settles for taking his sunglasses off, wiping them with the hem of his hoodie. “Been doing a lot of that lately. Not as cool as I thought.”

Jack huffs and raises his eyebrows in that smug way he does when he’s about to say ‘I told you so,’ but as soon as he looks up at Rhys his face falls, mouth quickly clamping shut. “Yeah, well,” he grumbles, running a hand through his messy hair. Rhys mirrors him, wishing he’d combed it this morning. “Turns out being old and surly ain’t that much fun either.” After a moment he looks up at Rhys again, brows furrowed as he takes him in. “So you gonna sit or what?” he says, gesturing to the empty spot next to him on the couch.

Rhys smiles softly and sits.

-

From where she’s standing near the rear entrance to the library, Angel can just see the way her father stretches an arm over the back of the couch, and Rhys scoots closer to rest his head on Jack’s shoulder. She smiles, and sends the following text to both of them:

_Sorry, can’t make it after all. See you later!_

But neither of them check their phones to see it for a long while.

* * *

 

 **Epilogue:**  

“Wow, that’s uncomfortable,” Gaige whispers to Angel, where they stand in their caps and gowns, watching from a safe distance as Jack actually _dips_ Rhys to kiss him maybe a little too thoroughly to be considered decent in public. Rhys’s cap hangs precariously from his head, held only in place by the bobby pins securing it to his hair, and he reaches up quickly to adjust it before letting his mouth be devoured again.

“Yeah,” Angel says, frowning and looking away. “It is. Luckily I’m moving _far_ far away from _that,_ ” she says, gesturing in Jack and Rhys’s direction.

Gaige squints at her for a moment before her eyes widen in recognition. “Oh, yeah!” she says excitedly, “CMU, right?” At Angel’s nod, Gaige smiles widely. “Me too! Guess I’ll see you there in the fall, huh?” she says, winking and shooting Angel finger guns with her robotic hand, the other holding her diploma, before skipping away. Angel watches her go, taking a deep breath and telling herself that her face is heating up because she’s warm under her polyester gown.

“Hey Angel, come take a picture!” Rhys calls, and she rolls her eyes, walking over to them to let Jack get an arm around each of them as they all pose for the photo.

-

Weeks later, Vasquez ignores Jack’s hint to leave already, and picks up the framed photo on Jack’s desk. “Cute,” he says in a way that Jack doesn’t quite trust. “I didn’t know you had a son, sir.”

“I don’t. That’s my boyfriend,” Jack replies coolly, only looking up long enough to grin at Vasquez’s discomfort before telling him to get the hell out of his office already.

Jack laughs to himself after Vasquez leaves, sending Rhys a message about _urgent business_ in his office, before propping his feet up on his desk as he waits.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come harass me on [Tumblr](http://michaelandthegodsquad.tumblr.com/) and find out how you can get me to write stuff for you.


End file.
